Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

During his tenure as the foremost newsperson of the 1980s, Atari’s Paperboy faced many grievous challenges – squabbling drunks, swarms of bees, the actual Grim Reaper – and yet, day after day he answered the noble call of journalism, lashing his basket to his doughty BMX and daring the treacherously oblique suburbs of Reaganite America.

Speaking as both a news editor and a former paperboy, who broke his mind and body hauling obese Sunday editions to the millionaire houses at the top of the valley, Paperboy is my role model. Or he would be if my role model weren’t actually Steven Spielberg’s Freakazoid. Paperboy’s heyday has long since passed into history, however, and the business of journalism has changed beyond recognition. People don’t read newspapers anymore, they just eat pizza. This, at least, is the condensed analysis offered by Food Boy, which launched this week on Steam.

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Experimental, feature-length simulation game Apartment Story is not especially brilliant, but it does feature a home invasion that’s stressful in several, systemically tangible ways I’ve never quite felt in such a specific combination from a videogame before. It’s partly a story about mental health, partly about the absolute horror of not just managing a Sim but actually being one, and partly about seeing how many wanks and cheese sandwiches you can fit into a single morning. Yes, I washed my hands afterward. Ah, but after which?

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You might remember Kara Stone as the developer of Ritual Of The Moon, a game about a banished witch that is played in bursts of five minutes a day, over the course of a lunar cycle. Alice B (RPS in peace) dedicated an article series to it back in 2019, summarising it as “a sad, quiet, meditative game about breathing and loneliness and drawing pictures in the stars”. Stone’s forthcoming Known Mysteries is a ritual of the sun, I guess. Slated for launch on 23rd October, it’s the first of several, creatively low-carbon projects that will run off a custom, solar-powered server Stone has set up on her apartment balcony in Calgary, Canada.

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Bravely he stood, alone on his hill, unwavering in the face of backlash: Chrono Trigger should have just let Frog be a talking frog instead of being a knight turned into a frog. So, trash game. Fortunately, I can finally experience what it’s like to actually enjoy Chrono Trigger – Canadian Studio Riyo Games are making what they describe as a “spiritual successor”. It’s called Threads Of Time, it’s “aided by legendary developers and composers from Japan who have helped define Xenoblade Chronicles, the Mana series and more,” and it looks beautiful. Hop on over to the trailer below.

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Indie developers love making retro-styled games that look like PlayStation games you rented from Blockbuster and blitzed through in a feverish winter weekend. I’m glad, so here’s another. Cold And Afraid is a murder mystery that aims to channel the 1990s with chunky characters and lots of lovely dithering. You play a detective out to stop a serial killer with a grisly pattern who’s preying on the young women of an unnamed US city. On top of the obligatory tank controls, it aims to have “consequential dialogue choices” and a “Time Event system where you must meet certain people at specific times to forward different story threads”. Ah, forgive me, you’re here to see the chunky limbs. Here’s a recent trailer that shows ’em.

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I reckon I’ve got quite a strong long term memory. For instance, I can recall that time I read Stoner on a backpacking trip through Italy and realising that I particularly like sad books. I can also recall the delicious taste of a Mars Delight chocolate bar. But my short term memory, whew. Yeah it’s not so good. And the demo for Disposition, a liminal escape room game where you’ve got to remember how things are arranged in rooms, has hammered this point home.

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A year and a day after wonderful horror visual novel Slay The Princess first released, the promised Pristine Edition is arriving this October on the 24th. Like a very loud sticker on a very large bag of crisps, it promises to have “roughly 35%” more stuff in it. It’s a great game, and this sounds like the perfect time to pick it up, especially if you previously pirated it after the devs said they didn’t mind.

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Resident Evil’s awkward middle child, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, is now available via GOG. It follows in the leaking, shambling footsteps of Residents Evil 1 and 2, which likewise oozed onto the platform in June and in August respectively.

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I don’t know why it’s throwback racing game Christmas, but it is. Parking Garage Rally Circuit came out September 20th, Golden Lap is out tomorrow, Victory Heat Rally is out October 3rd, and today – today brings the Steam Early Access release of #Drive Rally, an unfortunately hashtagged arcade racer trying to recapture the “spirit of the 90s”.

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Metaphor: ReFantazio is either a high-fantasy Persona or a Shin Megami Tensei with cool fonts and a warm heart. Edwin dug its hybrid combat system, while James was moved by its mad libs monster design. It has an October 11th release date, but you don’t have to wait until then to begin plotting it and you along these various axes. There’s a demo you can play out now.

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